Go Daddy's Site Scanner Detects Holes

PRESS RELEASE

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Nov. 9, 2010) -- Internet traffic is drawn to a halt. Visitor trust is jeopardized. Getting hacked is a crippling experience for any website owner. Some users are even put out of business, losing money as the result of an attack. To help mitigate this threat, Go Daddy has created Site Scanner. The product locates website security weaknesses and then provides suggestions to fix them.

The latest WhiteHat Website Security Statistics Report, a quarterly publication highlighting online security trends, shows at least 71 percent of websites are at risk for Cross-Site Scripting, the most commonly-found vulnerability on the Internet. Hackers often target unsuspecting websites -- even the most basic ones -- to steal information, deface the site or infect visitors.

Go Daddy's Site Scanner is a proactive defense mechanism to shield against hackers and malware. The product is designed to help website owners stay on top of their website's security, with a daily scan, a threat-assessment scorecard and an email summary. Website operators can add a visual, date-stamped, trusted security seal -- giving their visitors peace of mind the site is being protected.

"If a website has a weakness, an attacker will find it sooner rather than later," said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. "Go Daddy created Site Scanner to give our customers an affordable way to discover issues with their websites before the hackers do."

Site Scanner is offered at a fraction of the price of its competitors, with the same standard of protection and requires minimal set up and management from the user.

Site Scanner's daily scan is summarized in a simple scorecard that categorizes issues as "Critical," "Warning" or "Informational" based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), an industry standard for assessing computer vulnerabilities. Users can receive email notification of their scan results or login to the online dashboard to view their scorecard.

From the Site Scanner dashboard, users can then drill down for more detailed information on any discovered vulnerabilities and see suggested courses of action to fix the problem.

All Site Scanner customers can also contact Go Daddy's Customer Security Advisers, a dedicated team of world class security experts available to answer questions and provide solutions. Many customers and small businesses rely on Go Daddy as their personalized security department, providing more in-depth explanations and information as needed. Go Daddy was recently nominated as a finalist in the 2010 SC Magazine Awards for Best Security Team, an honor given to companies that execute and manage strong security programs.

Users of Go Daddy's Site Scanner also benefit from having a trusted seal to display on their site, which lets visitors know their site is secure. When the website is free from known vulnerabilities, the seal is updated with the date of the most recently passed scan. The site seal remains visible as long as the vulnerabilities that caused the failed scan are addressed within 72 hours.

To learn more about Go Daddy Site Scanner, visit http://www.godaddy.com/security/website-security.aspx.

To learn how to easily and affordably build an online presence, visit www.GoDaddy.com.

About The Go Daddy Group, Inc. Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and website design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce website hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group has more than 44 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world's largest Web hosting provider and is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. During the first half of 2010, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all new domain names created in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.